Always Riding Toward Something     peloton, Issue 28

It was some time in the 1980s—that much I know for sure. As for recalling more specific details about the people, places and situations that occurred during this time in my life, I’m just not clear.

 

Dreaming of Japan    peloton, Issue 26

Japan. Hear the word spoken, or even say it internally, silently, and distinct images will immediately spring to mind.  For me, the images are of simple, singular things in perfect relationship to one another, objects merging to form something of greater significance and value than the individual parts alone.

 

Futbol   peloton, Issue 23

I find myself mesmerized in front of the television, watching what is the most fascinatingly boring sporting event I’ve seen in a long time.

 

The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of Absinthe    peloton, Issue 22 

When the first stage of the first Tour de France departed Paris en route to Lyon—a “plain stage” of 467 km (290 miles)—no one, except perhaps Henri Desgrange, could have imagined the size, shape and influence the race would come to have in the sport of cycling today. 

 

Omertà in 3 Acts     peloton, Issue 21

It’s been strange, to say the least, over the years, to witness the developments in professional cycling and to see how fans have been shocked and/or angered at the stories that have been reported.

 

Beckett:  The Bicycle, Transfiguration, and Waiting for Godot    peloton, Issue 18

Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is widely considered the most revered, discussed and debated English language drama of the 20th-century.  

 

Hierarchy, Leadership and the Tour     peloton, Issue 15

Every year I wonder the same thing about the Tour de France:  why is this race not a thousand times more popular in the United States? 

 

James Joyce was never a Cyclist    peloton, Issue 14

After a prolonged and contentious disagreement with publisher Grant Richards over the printing of Dubliners, Joyce writes in a letter:  “I seriously believe that you will retard the course of civilization in Ireland by preventing the Irish people from having one good look at themselves in my nicely polished looking-glass.”

 

Americans in Paris     peloton, Issue 13

Much has been written about Hemingway’s France and the American expatriates who were lured to Paris in the 1920s.  

 

Louis Malle's Vive le Tour!    peloton, Issue 13

The 1962 Tour de France was won by Jacques Anquetil in a time of 114 hours, 31 minutes and 54 seconds—a total of 6,872 minutes in the saddle. 

 

Cycling and the American Sports Consciousness   peloton, Issue 06

 “Just win!” It’s the mantra of the most popular American professional sports. For football, baseball and basketball players and coaches—as well fans that focus meticulously on their favorite team or player, passionately (even irrationally at times) cheering them on to victory—nothing else seems to matter.

 

Roland Barthes on the Tour    peloton, Issue 05

Perspective is everything.  And when it comes to cycling’s grandest of the grand tours, the Tour de France, perspective shifts to a very particular angle and focus. 

 

Italy, 1948: Ladri di Bicilette and Gino Bartali   Italiano, Issue 01

“You live and you suffer,” Antonio Ricci says in despair as he realizes his stolen bicycle, the sample yet profoundly significant metaphor in Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 classic Italian film Ladri di biciclette (The Bicycle Thief), will never be returned.